Issues of the Day – Eagle County, Colorado

Eagle County School District – Update

The more the ECT learns about the EC School District’s Budget numbers, the more questions we have.

What the ECT learned last week –

1998 – $48 Million dollar long term Bond Issue passed by County Voters.

2006 – $128 Million dollar long term Bond Issues passed by County Voters.

Followed by a $7.5 Million dollar (gadget is what they called it) – (Click Here)

ECT not certain how many more years the EC Taxpayer has to pay to retire what is already on the books.

According to EC School Superintendent Sandra Smyser – 80% of the Annual School Budget goes to fund School District personnel.

900 – number of School District Employees

520 – 58% of total – current number of Teachers

380 – 42% of total Administration and Support Staff

The current ECSD plan is to cut 27 classroom jobs and 20 from the Administration and support staff. That’s about 5.2% of personnel cuts by our count. Randy Wyrick’s report for last year – shows that the total ECSD Budget for 2010-2011 was $124,300,332 (Click Here) The proposed cut for next year is $5 Million and represents about a 4% budget cut overall.

There is no question that 4% is a minuscule budget cut – compared to what’s being cut – in Eagle County’s Private Sector companies today…Have your Real Estate Sales been reduced by only 4% over the past year? How about your Construction related business? Retail? Restaurant? Only seen a 4% reduction in overall business?

Yet these budget cuts are so ‘Severe’ in the minds of your Elected EC School Board – it’s big enough for your School Board to consider another 2011 Ballot question – asking for a $6.7 Million dollar ANNUAL Property Tax increase. Rest assured your School Board sees that ‘900’ number above as 900 YES votes for your Property Tax increase. Starting to feel like a California taxpayer?

More Questions.

1 – On average in Colorado – How many School District Employees are needed to teach how many Students?

2 – How many Students were taught by the EC School District last year? How many Students are projected for next (2011-2012) School year? Over all Eagle County job losses remain at an all time high, suggesting School enrollment numbers will drop further – as families move out of Eagle County in order to find work.

The ECT will continue our report on the Eagle County School District as we move closer to this November’s election.

Excellent reading sent to our budget makers in CO – and proves yet again, large class sizes don’t matter-but outstanding teachers do, as well as more money does not matter. but outstanding teachers do matter.

For me, most informative part right now- I found the Big Announcemment of ECS “• Elementary school classrooms will increase from 19.4 to 20.9 kids • Middle school will increase from 20.9 to 26.2 kids • High school classes will increase from 28.9 to 32.8 kids” to be countered by what I experienced growing up in your report – large classes and good education belied by this-> Centennial Institute Policy Brief No. 2010-2 * Page 11 A19:

SEE? a. Three of the five highest-performing countries in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1994-95 – Singapore, South Korea, and Japan – had average class sizes greater than 30 students. Korea’s averaged over 50.

And:

A2: The following are recent secondary education figures from OECD countries most comparable to the USA.

The 7,800-acre Winter Valley Fire in Moffat County was 100 percent contained Tuesday as visible smoke from interior islands showed minimal creeping behavior, according to the Bureau of Land Management.